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Lesson 8 Music of the Romantic Period (Part2 )

Reading
https://www.britannica.com/art/leitmotif
Wagner: Tristan und Isode, Prelude: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fkj9OFhpb-
M

Nationalism
• Emphasis on literary and linguistic tradition, an interest in folklore, a
large dose of patriotism, and craving for independence and identity.
• Composers tried to get rid of the German influence in music
• Employing native folksongs and dances or imitating their musical
character could develop a style that had ethnic identity.

Russia
Mikhail Glinka (1804 – 1857)
• Gained his reputation after the patriotic opera Zhizn za tsarya (A Life
for the Czar, 1836).
♪ Recitative and melodic writing has a Russian character,
attributable to modal scale, quotation of folk songs, and folk like
idioms.
♪ Ruslan and Lyudmila (his 2nd opera, 1842) also used the Russian folk
idioms.
Overture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-NDks9cunU

Piotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky (1840 – 1893)

• Became the best-known 19th century Russian composer
• Begun a career in law, graduate from the St. Petersburg Conservatory
and taught harmony at the Moscow Conservatory.
• First success with the Fantasia Overture Romeo and Juliet after the
Shakespearean play.
• Composed 6 symphonies (No. 4 in F minor, No. 5 in E minor, and No. 6, the
Pathétique, in B minor are still frequently performed.
♪ No.5 used of cyclic method
♪ No. 6 used Russian asymmetrical 5/4 meter
• Other compositions:
♪ 3 piano concertos (No.1 in B flat minor), Violin Concerto in D
♪ 3 ballet score: Swan Lake (1876), The Sleeping Beauty
(1889), ands The Nutcracker (1892).
♪ 1812 Overture, The Slavic March
♪ Opera: Eugene Onegin (1879), The Queen of Spades (1890)
Symphony No. 4 Finale:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txLp5HGlG8U
The Birch Tree:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=the+birch+tree
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The Mighty Five

Alexander Borodin (1833 – 1887)
• Principal works:
♪ 2nd Symphony in B minor (1876), 2nd String Quartet in D (1885)
♪ Prince Igor, opera in 4 acts (completed by Rimsky-Korsakov and
Glazunov in 1890): Polovetsian Dances
Modest Mussorgsky (1839 – 1881)
• Principal works:
♪ Orchestral: Night on Bald Mountain (1867)
♪ Piano: Picture at an Exhibition (1874, was orchestral by
Ravel and many others later)
♪ Opera: Boris Godunov (1874)
• Influence in Russian Music
♪ Texts in opera: following the accents of Russian speech as closely as
possible.
♪ Quotation of folk tunes
♪ Use of modal harmony: nonfunctional harmonic progression.

Mily Balakirev (1837 – 1910)

César Cui (1835 – 1918)

Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov (1844 – 1908)

• Master of orchestration: Principles of Orchestration
• Works included: Capriccio espagnol (1887), symphonic suite Sheherazade
(1888), and the Russian Easter Overture (1888)
Sheherazade (2nd movement, The Kalendar prince)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qp4dyrJ79Cg

Alexander Scriabin (1872 – 1915)

• A concert pianist
• Works included: nocturnes, preludes, etudes, and mazurkas in the manner
of Chopin.
• Used chromaticism which was influenced Liszt
• Complex harmonic language

Czech (Bohemian)
Bedřich Smetana (1824 – 1884)
• Symphonic Poems: Má vlast (My Fatherland; 1872 – 80)
• String Quartet: From My Life

Antonín Dvořák (1841 – 1904)

• Works included:
♪ Symphony No. 9 in E Minor, From the New World (2nd
movement)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZlenE1Nb8c
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W19CU3zwxkM
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♪ 21 Slavic Dances
♪ String Quartet, Piano Trios
♪ Piano Concerto, Cello Concerto, Violin Concerto

Norway
Edvard Hagerup Grieg (1843 – 1907)
• Incidental Music Peer Gynt for Ibsen’s play – Peer Gynt Suite
Solveig’s Song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TUhk00H86g
• Piano Concerto in A minor
• Violin Sonata, Cello Sonata
• String Quartet
• Piano Sonata, Lyric Pieces for Piano

England
Sir Edward Elgar (1857 – 1934)
• 1st English composer with international recognition after Henry Purcell
• Works included: 2 Symphonies, the Enigma Variations (1899), Violin
Concerto, Cello Concerto, Pomp and Circumstances, No. 1. (Land of Hope
and Glory: 4’52”) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vvgl_2JRIUs

Spain
Isaac Albeniz (1860 – 1909)
• Pianist composer
• Works: Iberia, Suite Espanõla,
No. 5 Asturias: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTFdrLCXqmE

Enrique Granados (1867 – 1916)

• Contemporary with Albeniz
• Works: 12 Spanish Dances, Goyescas (No. 4 The Maid and the Nightingale)

Manual de Falla (1876 – 1946)

• Opera in one act: La vida breve (Life is Short)
• Ballet score: El amor brujo, The Three Corner’s Hat
• Nights in the Gardens of Spain: for Piano Orchestra
• Composition style: Spanish rhythm and melodies

European Music at the turn of centuries

Italian Opera
• After Verdi: opera became truthism, realism or naturalism.
• Librettos present everyday people’s life.

Giacomo Puccini (1858 – 1924)

• Appropriate to realistic libretto: Tosca (1900) and Il tabarro (1918)
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• Musical ideas:
♪ Suddenly sprouted melody
♪ Parallel chords, augmented triads, added sixths, and whole tone scales.
♪ Wagnerian influences: chromatic alterations, use of leitmotif.
♪ La bohème (1896)
♪ Oriental influences: Madama Butterfly (1904, Japanese),
Turandot (1926, Chinese, incomplete) Signore Ascolta
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J79QzJG8BCs

The Late Romantic Masters

Russia
Sergei Rachmaninov (1873 – 1943)
• Known not only as a composer but also the most demanded pianist
• Cultivated a late Romantic, sweepingly passionate, melodious idiom
• Not interested in the national movement; left Russia in 1917 and never
returned.
• Compositions included:
♪ 3 Symphonies (3rd Movement from No.2), Symphonic Dance,
Symphonic Poem The Isle of Death
♪ 4 Piano Concertos, Rhapsopy on a Theme of Paganini (1934)
Variation 18 (16:20):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppJ5uITLECE
♪ Piano pieces: Preludes, Sonata, etc
♪ Chamber works and songs

Finland
Jean Sibelius (1865 – 1957)
• Orchestral works: 7 Symphnoies, 3 Symphonic poems, Violin Concerto

France
Gabriel Fauré (1845 – 1924)
 Studying with Saint-Saëns from 1861 to 1865
 Organist, founder of National Society for French Music
 Became the Professor and the director of the Paris Conservatory,
students included Ravel and Nadia Boulonger.
 A master of the French art song.
 His work was based on a strong understanding of harmonic structures:
♪ use of seventh and ninth chords are no longer considered
♪ dissonant and the mediant can be altered without changing the
mode.
♪ use of the church modes.
 Works included:
♪ Requiem in D minor, Op. 48
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBzSoXUOfos
♪ Pavane, Op. 50
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The German Tradition

Hugo Wolf (1860 – 1903)
• Known as a lieder composer (250 lieder); also writing for piano, choruses,
symphonic works and one opera, Der Corregidor (1896)

Gustav Mahler (1860 – 1911)

• Built his career as a composer as well as a conductor
• Worked as the director of the Vienna Opera House, Metropolitan Opera in
New York, New York Philharmonic Orchestra
• Admired Wagner’s music
• Unsuccessful attempts at composing opera but brilliant in symphonies and
lieder
• Composed 5 song cycles for solo voices with orchestra:
♪ Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (Songs of a Wayfarer, 1883 – 84).
♪ Lieder aus “Des Knaben Wunderhorn” (The Boy’s Magic Horn, 1892 –
98).
♪ Rückert Lieder, after the poems of Friedrich Rückert (1901 – 02).
♪ Kindertotenlieder (Songs on the Death of Children, 1901 – 04).
♪ Das Lied von der Erde (1907– 09).

• 9 Symphonies
♪ *No. 1 in D, Titan, after Jean Paul (1884 – 88, 2nd rev. 1906).
♪ No. 2 in C minor, the Resurrection with a soprano and alto voice
and a mixed choruses (1888 – 94,rev. 1903).
♪ No. 3 in D minor, used a contralto solo with boys and women’s
chorus (1893 – 96, rev. 1906).
♪ No. 4 in G, last movement is a song on a text from Des Knaben
Wunderhorn (1892, 99 – 1900, rev. 1901 – 10).
♪ *No. 5 , from the funeral gloom of the opening march to the triumph
of scherzo and the joy of finale (Beethoven’s 5th) (1901 – 02)
3rd movement. Scherzo (28:20 – 45:05):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOvXhyldUko&t=1736s
♪ *No. 6 in A minor, Tragic (1903 – 04).
♪ *No. 7, Song of the Night: 2 slow movements, with unusual
instruments: mandolin and guitar (1904 – 05).
♪ No. 8 in E-flat Major, Symphony of Thousand: required a
super-big size orchestra and chorus (1906 – 07).
♪ Die Lied von der Erde (The Songs of the Earth,) song cycle-
symphony, based on the translation of Chinese Poem (1907 –
09).
♪ *No. 9 in D major to D flat major (1908 – 09).
♪ NO. 10 in F-sharp minor, in completed (1910 – 11).
*Instrumental Only
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Richard Strauss (1864 – 1949)

• Son of Franz Strauss, the principle horn player in the Court opera of Munich.
• Assistant to Hans von Bülow at the Berlin State Opera.
• Became the most famous German composer and conductor around 1900.
• Master of symphonic as well as vocal compositions
• Works included Symphonic Poems, Opera, Lieder, Chamber Music:
• Symphonic Poems:
♪ Don Juan (1889)
♪ Tod und Verklärung (Death and Transfiguration, 1889)
♪ Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche (Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks,
1895)
♪ Also sprach Zarathustra (1896): inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche's
philosophical 1883-1885 novel Thus Spoke Zarathustra and was
quoted in the soundtrack of the film 2001: A Space Odysseus.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4d88IgvhK4
♪ Don Quixote (1897): for Cello, Viola and orchestra after the
Spanish epic.
♪ Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life, 1898)
• 2 Programmed Symphonies
♪ Sinfonia domestica (1903)
♪ Alpensymphonie (Alpine Symphony, 1915)
• 2 Concertos for Horn, Oboe Concerto
• Major Operas
♪ Salome (1905): after Oscar Wilde’s play based on a biblical story
♪ Elekra (1908):
– Began the collaboration with Hugo von Hofmannsthal
for 7 seven operas.
– Used of chromatic harmony, dissonant polytonal
passages and diatonic tonal sections.
– With Leimotifs: Wagner’s influence.
♪ Der Rosenkavalier (1911): the best known Strauss Opera
– Mock-Romantic, sensuous melodic curves, novel
harmonic twist, magical orchestral colors, and a lively
sense of comedy.
– Overflows with the lighthearted rhythms and melodies
of Viennese Waltz
Act 3, Trio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fi810zB3L04
♪ Ariadne auf Naxos (Ariadne at Naxos, 1912)

Lieder
• Four Last Songs (1945): The last composition for Soprano and Orchestra